Mercer, the global consultancy, has named Beverley Sharp as global head of retail research within its wealth management business – a London-based role in which she will assess the development of ongoing projects and spearhead efforts to maintain the competitiveness of the firm’s wealth management offering.

Sharp has been with Mercer since June of last year, when she joined as a member of the manager research team focusing on equity research. Since joining she has developed research on wealth management-related strategies and has worked with a number of the firm’s clients in the development of their advisory and discretionary offerings.

In her earlier career Sharp was a fund analyst at BDO Investment Management, covering equity and fixed income products along with recommending strategies for inclusion in fund of fund products. She was also instrumental in decisions on portfolio positioning in her capacity as a member of BDO’s investment committee.

In other recent hires, in August Mercer named Michael Dempsey as head of its investment management business for EMEA, an appointment which closely followed that of Paul O’Connor as head of asset allocation for the same business.

Dempsey - who had spent the past four years heading up Mercer’s investment management business in Ireland - succeeded Tom Murphy, who after five years in the role relocated to Boston to take up the role of regional head of investment management. O'Connor, meanwhile, previously spent ten years as a proprietary trader and strategist with Credit Suisse in London.